An Efficient Stator Inter-Turn Fault Diagnosis Tool for Induction Motors

Induction motors constitute the largest proportion of motors in industry. This type of motor experiences different types of failures, such as broken bars, eccentricity, and inter-turn failure. Stator winding faults account for approximately 36% of these failures. As such, condition monitoring is used to protect motors from sudden breakdowns. This paper proposes the use of neural networks as an efficient diagnostic tool for estimating the percentage of stator winding shorted turns in three-phase induction motors. A MATLAB-based model was developed and simulated under different fault-load combination cases for different sizes of motors. The motor’s developed electromechanical torque was selected as a fault indicator. For the design and training of the neural network, the mean, variance, max, min, and F120 time based on statistical and frequency-related features were found to be very distinct for correlating the captured electromechanical torque with its corresponding percentage of shorted turns. In the training phase of the neural network, five different motors were used and are referred to as seen motors. On the other hand, for testing the efficiency of the developed diagnostic tool, the electromechanical torque under different fault-load combination cases, previously never seen from the first five motors and those of two new motors (referred to as unseen), was used. Testing results revealed accuracy in the range of 88–99%.